In the B2B world, buyers face complex challenges and often have lengthy buying journeys. Traditional marketing tactics don't always cut it – B2B buyers crave personalized, efficient, and informative interactions. That's where conversational marketing strategy comes in, revolutionizing how businesses connect with and empower B2B buyers.
A few ways that CM enables B2B buyers include:
- They can get their question answered at the exact moment they need the info
- They can be directed to the right piece of content at the right time
- They can get qualifying questions answered without waiting to talk to a sales rep
- They avoid getting sales involved until they absolutely need to
- They can do self-guided research, which is growing as a preferred pre-sales activity among modern B2B buyers
To see the best conversational marketing benefits, you need to first determine which types of conversational marketing are right for you and your business.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, you may be asking yourself; What is conversation marketing in B2B? Let’s unpack that and see if we can help you determine what conversational marketing framework could be the right one for you.
What is conversational marketing in B2B?
In the simplest terms, conversational marketing in B2B refers to the use of chatbots, live chat, messaging apps, and other interactive tools to create two-way conversations with potential and existing customers. It's a shift from the traditional one-way marketing approach to a more personal and engaging experience.
Of the many conversational marketing examples, let’s take a look at a conversational marketing bot. It could be used for basic customer support, lead generation, customer surveys, and simple product information like availability or personalized recommendations. They can even help with long wait times, provide support outside of business hours, and effectively reduce costs for businesses.
Basically, all roads lead to more one-on-one, personalized interactions between your business and your potential customers. People today are tired of feeling marketed to. The more you can effectively make an interaction personal, the more likely people will be to interact with you in turn.
How to use conversational marketing in B2B to your best advantage
While everyone’s individual conversational marketing strategy will be different to meet your specific needs, we can look at a high-level view of how you can use conversational marketing tools to meet your business goals.
To start, when thinking about how to use conversational marketing in B2B marketing strategy, you first need to define what your business goals are. It’s easy to get caught up in conversational marketing trends, but just fashion trends, they’re not for everyone and can be considered passe before you know it.
Six things to think about when coming up with your conversational marketing strategy
- Define your goals and target audience. Ask yourself what do you want to achieve with conversational marketing? Do you want to generate leads, qualify prospects, provide customer support, or build brand awareness? Or maybe you want to do all of the above.
- Choose the right conversational marketing tools. With options like live chat, chatbots, messaging apps, and virtual assistants, you’re spoiled for choice. Which one or ones you choose should align with your goals and budget.
- Craft engaging conversation flows. Whether live chat or AI chatbot, having a clear map out the customer journey can help you anticipate questions or needs at each stage, so your team can be ready with the right answers in real time.
- Train your team or chatbot. Building off of the conversation flows, educating your customer service and sales reps on using conversational tools effectively is key to effective implementation.
- Integrate with your existing marketing and sales systems: No marketing strategy is an island. Connecting your conversational marketing tools to your CRM for data synchronization and lead tracking can help you gather data to optimize your marketing efforts.
- Measure and optimize your results: Track key conversational marketing statistics like engagement rates, lead generation, and conversion rates. You can use that to analyze user feedback to identify areas for improvement.
Conversational marketing & AI
Just like with every other marketing and tech advancement, conversational marketing AI is a big part of the conversation today. (Small pun intended)
Let’s think about some benefits of AI-powered conversational marketing.
AI-powered tools are available 24/7, even outside business hours, ensuring your customers can get responses whenever they have questions.
AI can handle multiple conversations simultaneously, efficiently managing large customer volumes.
Chatbots can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up your people for more complex interactions and strategic planning.
What conversational marketing statistics can tell us about the future of conversational marketing
Conversational marketing is rapidly rising in popularity, and the statistics paint a clear picture of its potential to enable B2B buyers.
Don’t just take our word for it, see what the research is saying about conversational marketing growth:
- Over 2.8 billion people worldwide were expected to be using messaging apps regularly by the end of 2023.
- 40% of B2B seller work is projected to be done through conversational interfaces by 2028 (Gartner).
Or consumer preferences:
- 9 out of 10 consumers want the option to use messaging to contact businesses (Twilio).
- 53% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company they can message directly (Drift).
Better yet, look at the impact on sales and future potential:
- Conversational marketing can increase conversion rates by up to 45%.
- A HubSpot study showed that companies using chatbots for customer service see a 67% increase in leads.
- Salesforce predicts that by 2025, 95% of customer interaction will happen through conversational marketing AI.
Conversational marketing isn’t a passing fad. It’s an integral part of a robust, modern B2B marketing strategy. It empowers companies to reach more customers and enables B2B buyers to have a more seamless buyer journey.
If you’re interested to see what conversational marketing can do for your business, click the link below. It’s better to be early to the conversational marketing party than late.